Healing the 'split'; trauma as a dynamic in psychosis

lucia franco

Brunel University

Born in Italy now living in the Uk. Following a trauma at a young age I developed what was diagnosed paranoid schizophrenia. After many years of analysis, therapy, counselling and self-analysis I have reached what, I now in myself, a resolution of my psychosis. I obtained a degree in Psychology, a Counselling Diploma and am currently doing PhD studies researching in Psychosis at Brunel University.I am the founder and chair of The Oak Tree Self Help Group for people with Mental Health problems. I firmly believe that the shame about psychosis is for those who caused the pain leading to the condition and not for the victims who become psychotic. I am dedicated to demystifying the condition which I consider a normal and natural response of the mind to particular events and not a 'crazy' reaction.

Abstract

Various authors suggested that trauma may be cause of psychosis but, so far, it hasn’t been possible to identify what distinguishes the trauma that may lead to psychosis from other types of trauma. To provide evidence... [ view full abstract ]

Various authors suggested that trauma may be cause of psychosis but, so far, it hasn’t been possible to identify what distinguishes the trauma that may lead to psychosis from other types of trauma. To provide evidence for this hypothesis I use my own experience of trauma and my diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia. After a period of intense analysis with a therapist, followed by self analysis, I uncovered that I had internalised an entirely distorted understanding of what had occured. As I worked towards achieving my subjective truth of what had happened, and thus began to overcome the psychological violence that had forced me to not understand, I gradually found psychotic symptoms disappearing and a sense of wholeness emerging. Using my experience and looking at published autobiographical accounts of people who experienced psychosis, I suggest that an experience of trauma, where the victim has been made to understand the traumatic experience from the perspective of the abuser, is what is different from other traumas, and it is this that can lead to psychosis. I further indicate how the trauma itself may contain elements that lead to the false understanding. Such a powerful distortion is what makes the abuser, using Lacan's description of the psychotic experience of Judge Schreber, become a ‘puppeteer’ and the abused a ‘puppet’ in his/her hands. A trauma causing a distortion of understanding powerful to the point of overwhelming the individual’s ego completely would explain both the loss of reality characteristic of psychosis and the fragmentation (or split) of the ego that accompanies the condition. This process of uncovering the past and recognising the truth of a situation may lead to an integration of what has been ‘split off’ in the personality, allowing for a mourning of the past events to occur.